


A Little Party Never Killed Nobody

by mintpearlvoice



Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1920s, Multi, escape the night
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-30
Updated: 2017-06-30
Packaged: 2018-11-21 16:23:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11361132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mintpearlvoice/pseuds/mintpearlvoice
Summary: A oneshot for the Youtube Red series Escape The Night, in which Oli is a "big game hunter" and Eva is a "journalist" but they're actually FROM the 1920s.





	A Little Party Never Killed Nobody

Eva Gutowski isn’t supposed to be at this party. It’s for the rich and famous- the heiress to a great manufacturing fortune, the jazz singer who makes her audience so desperate to hear her that fistfights erupt outside the clubs in Harlem where she sings. The legendary beauty who rigged the year’s biggest horse race by whispering into the ears of the right people. The professor expelled from two universities for his controversial theories on the nature of physics. The hard-edged man who practically owns every smuggling sloop and rum-runner rig that dares to land on the East Coast, and allegedly once took a bath in champagne.   
And what does Eva have going for her?  
Well, technically, she’s funny.  
Oh, in her own mind, she has a host of other talents. She can run like a streak of lightning down a crowded sidewalk, she has the sharpest elbows in Brooklyn, and people will tell her their secrets if she’s just quiet enough in their presence. But the reason she got the job at the newspaper was because they wanted someone funny to write the advice column, and the reason they’ve let her write actual articles is because the men at the top consider her too funny to be a real threat.   
Her target’s laugh cuts across the room. Oliver White, mingling with the Professor and the Renegade, supremely at ease in his aviator’s jacket and crisply ironed pants.   
No one at this party has ever swatted a cockroach with yesterday’s newspaper. Especially not Oli. Fifth-generation investment baron, fourth-generation entitled playboy. Famous for evading the press, even as he siphons money from a company he takes no active part in running.   
Well, Oli is finally going to get good and properly interviewed. 

The Professor and the Renegade are talking a million miles a minute. He’s just exceptionally skilled at smiling and nodding.  
Something something multiverse theory, something something occult activity.   
“That’s fascinating,” and “Wow,” he keeps saying. It’s the same tactic he’s used on his father, on the Board of Directors, on everyone who’s determined to shove him into playing a role. On the whole, though, as far as fake personae go, Polite Party Guest is really quite tolerable.   
“Mr. White? I want to talk to you about the recent shareholder statement that you’ve wasted your money on personal aggrandizement.”  
It's so early in the evening, but he's used to throwing money at bathtub gin. This sleek Irish whiskey is the genuine article, and the girl shoving a notebook in his face makes him even more light-headed. Her practical salmon-colored coat and demure cloche hat do nothing to soften her serious expression.  
And yet. There’s something soft about her, too. Something intriguing. Those full, kissable lips. The soft curls of forest-dark hair, just waiting to be released with the slightest tug of a hair ribbon.   
There are women at this party wearing revealing dresses that drip with gemstones. He could have any one of them in any one of this mansion’s million bedrooms.   
And bloody hell, she’s expecting an answer. Good thing he has some acceptable-sounding nonsense prepared.  
"It's for science. Museums need animal specimens so they can, you know, teach children about animals. And if that happens to get me a wild journey through the outback, just perks of the job, right?"  
He flashes his patently disarming smile, knowing that his accent has, in the past, been enough to throw women out of step with their plans.  
But she just stares back, her gaze clear and unsmiling. "And do you feel that you've earned these perks, Mr. White?"  
Her question cuts deeper to the core of him than anything, anyone, ever has. No one ever expected him to amount to anything. His job is being rich, spending money, making news. If his life feels empty- well, maybe it's supposed to, because everyone in his social circle is satisfied by the thrill of the chase. Chasing the next lion. The next girl. The next... whatever. She burns right through to the emptiness of him with just a look.  
Eva expects him to puff himself up like an angry animal, to say something rude and dismissive. Instead, he falters. Pausing in uncertainty, his clean-shaven face looks almost boyish.   
“Um,” he states, and sips his drink. “You know… that’s a really good question.”  
It’s been too long since anyone complimented her skills, because she almost wants to take the compliment.   
Another sip. “I’m afraid you have me at quite a disadvantage, Miss…?”  
“Eva. Eva Gutowski.”  
“Eva.” His accent lingers on her workaday name, making it sound almost beautiful. Ayvah. “Pleasure to make your acquaintance, Miss Gutowski.” For a bizzare, breath-stopping moment, she thinks he’s going to kiss her hand. He shakes it instead, his warm hand enveloping her much smaller one. The smile he treats her to is awkward, lopsided- is he just as ill at ease here as I am? It’s almost disarming.  
That must be how Mr. White gets so many women into bed with him. Playing the helpless boy, the roguish charmer. Well, she’s not falling for his Peter Pan act.  
“Now, do you have a response to my question?” Within a moment, her notebook and pen are at the ready once again.   
“The fact is- can I tell you something I’ve never told anyone before?”  
“Go ahead.” She lets him hear the skepticism in her voice.   
“All I do for the company is shake hands and sign papers. I’m a figurehead. I’m there because my grandfather’s name is the name of the company, and damned if I won’t show up to work and sit behind a great big desk like my father and his father before me. But the fact is, Eva- Miss Gutowski?” There’s that smile again. Slower. Lingering. Like he’s telling her a secret no one else has ever known. “I’m rubbish at maths.”  
Something inside her- the part of her that was actually excited about this party, about curling her hair and digging her heels out from the back of the closet- blooms forth. It’s a tigerlily flower of unneeded emotion, champagne-flowered, warm in a hothouse of laughter and darts games.   
Oh, no. Eva, you are not here to flirt. You are especially not here to flirt with some… useless playboy! So she flashes him a smile of her own, as hard and bright as a gambler’s diamond. “Thank you for your contributions, Mr. White. That will be all. I can just see the headline tomorrow morning: world-traveling executive bad at maths.”  
“Tell you what, Miss Eva. You do that, and I’ll have it framed in my office.”  
What, does he want her to write the article, or is he just too rich and self-absorbed to take anything seriously? “I appreciate your feedback,” she manages, and hurries away. Right. I need a drink.

Oli watches her go with a shake of his head. Every other woman at this party is wearing something dazzling; she’s like a pigeon among peacocks in comparison. But pigeons are scrappy little buggers. They’ll live anywhere, thrive anywhere, even though they have to chase off more beautiful birds for every crust of bread.   
His usual companions would direct him to a choice bit of calico like Justine or Sierra, full-breasted and fashionable. Sierra wears a fortune in diamonds as casually as a child’s paper gown, and she has an unmistakable porcelain beauty. Justine looks like the statues of pagan goddesses he saw in Greece, tall and exquisite. Real Shebas, the both of them. Even Lala, while self-made, has a low, throaty laugh that indicates she’d be ripe for any suggestion. He can even imagine his friends’ voices: why would you want some upstaging bluenose with a flat chest?  
The fact is, he likes a challenge. Nothing makes him feel more alive than the thrill of uncertainty. That one time in Cairo when his canteen ran out two days from the oasis, for instance. Hunting a bear through the Canadian forest, knowing that the savage creature could ambush him at any moment. The only prey worth hunting is the prey that has just as much chance of killing you as you have of killing it. And Eva? In one moment, she’d seen him, seen through him, in a way no one else has ever managed. If this was a hunt, he’d be the one slaughtered and cleaned, split open from belly to collarbones.   
And suddenly, he’s bloody glad he came to yet another stupid party.


End file.
